Random thoughts from a few cantankerous American physicians. All contributors are board certified. Various specialties are represented here. I do not know where this will lead but hope it will at least be an enjoyable read. All of the names mentioned in this blog are pseudonyms, the ages have been changed, and in half the cases the gender as well. All photographs are published with patient consent or are digitally altered to preserve anonymity. Trust us, we're doctors.

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

Like the generally good guy that I am, I was helping my sister move this past weekend. I went to set up her dryer, and was immediately perplexed by the fact that her dryer had a 3 pronged plug and the recepticle had 4 holes.

I figured Home Depot would have some sort of adapter. Alas, there is no such thing. The very enthusiastic assistant (whom I believe suffered from severe hypothyroidism, dysthymia, bradycardia, and Parkinson's) sold me a whole new cord and explained the re-wiring of the dryer. It sounded simple enough.

So, I took my new cord, a screwdriver, a wrench, and a rudimentary understanding of dryer wiring into the laundry room. I wired it up just as he told me and was quite pleased with myself.

I leaned over the dryer to plug it in and the next thing I knew, I was 10 feet away laying on the floor twitching. It was 2 or 3 minutes before I could move my arms or legs.

According to the service man who came to correct my mistake, this wasn't the first time he'd seen the same thing from a novice electrician recieving instructions from the pros at Home Depot. I had wired the hot wire to the ground which subsequently ran 220V through me when I leaned over the dryer and plugged it in.

Fortunately, no permanent damage to either me or the dryer. But don't tell my sister. I still get sympathy by twitching from time to time!

I'm glad you weren't hurt! Electricity scares me. For some reason my husband thinks he knows what he is doing with it and almost always ends up like you did. Luckily his uncle is an actual electrician (unlike the pretend one my husband tries to be) so he comes to bail us out from whatever my husband thinks he can do. And then I pretend I don't know that his uncle fixed it for him. It seems to work well for us.

You ARE a good guy to help your sister! I haven't heard from my brother in almost a year and when I heard from him last he was yelling at me that he better not get cancer because of me. He's smart, right?

erdoc: Do what I did: swear off all home improvements / DIY / yardwork / gutter cleaning etc... When my income topped $100k+ I decided to pay someone else to fall off a ladder and quad-out / shock themselves into cardiac arrest / cut off a finger mowing the lawn.My wife thinks it's just because I'm a lazy fuck - she is partially correct.

And taking wiring advice from a Home Depot employee? You are bold / insane.

rad girl: I read a bunch of your blog entries recently: how the bloody hell can you be a fan of this blog?? You are way to nice for this bunch of misanthropic freaks known as MDOD. Here's a free ad for your blog: If you want to read something life-affirming / sweet / funny - read rad girls blog - and run screaming from here.

Wow, ERdoc, what a shocking experience :) It might just be my dirty mind, but I'm sensing some underlying psychosexual dynamics here. Your sisters "dryer"? I won't even get into the 3 and 4 pronged stuff. I've never really understood electricity, and thats a good thing. Thanks again for being allowed into this August gathering, Frank

Well, when I was aboutr 9 or 10 my grandpa tried to "fix" a fuse on a Sunday...with a copper penny in the fusebox resulting in a rain of fire on "said" grandchild (me!) that burned up all the wiring in the attic and caused the whole house to be rewired. The last time my hubby "fixed" something electrical with the air conditioning it cost us somewhere in the range of $1000 to replace all the burned wire....be afraid...very afraid.